I learned last night that if a 12 year-old boy who usually eats more than his other three siblings combined, tells you he “isn’t really all that hungry” at dinner, he is about to puke for the next eight hours.
Stomach bugs are the super most bestest!
Here’s what you do when your preteen boy is sick: You sit on the bathroom floor and promise him he isn’t going to die. When he moans, “Why is God doing this to me???“, you tell him there is no “why” for this. And you are very, very, very sorry. And you love him.
You think about his future wife, who will do this dark-of-night nursing for him one day. You know she will be basically Snow White, Pollyanna, and Katniss all rolled into one person. You love her so much already.
Here’s what you do not do: You don’t say you wish it were you lying on the cold tile sweating in between episodes. Because even though you’re a mom and you would do anything for him, moms can’t get sick like that because the whole world seems to orbit around your ability to stand up straight and make pancakes.
I don’t think I realized that surviving stomach bugs is such a learned skill before last night. I had to teach him everything: when to brush his teeth, at what point you realize drinking water is making it worse, and how to get a pillow and then endure the agony right there on the bathroom floor.
